I don't blame Peaches fr being rude... before the show Katie Hopkins tweeted this photo: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BY2niREIUAAWr7t.jpg
of Peaches when her child fell out of its stroller sayin "Looking forward to getting some parenting advice from Peaches later on #itvthismorning". She's vile. If I were Peaches I'd have been hard pressed not to punch her, tbh.

And give me evidence that an abortion cures someone from committing suicide.

Before the British Abortion Act was passed 10% of the women who committed suicide in Ireland did so while pregnant - this number is somewhere around 1-2% now. Wonder how that happened!...couldn't have been anything to do with the fact that women who might otherwise have killed themselves rather than continue pregnancy could travel to the UK for the healthcare they needed, no?

Excuse me? I actively lobby for women's rights in my own country, where they are very restricted.... where women take pills in their bathrooms and bleed at home afraid and without care, where women have been left to die rather than be provided with the abortions they needed to save their lives. Where couples with pregnancies that can't live outside the womb have to travel in shame and silence abroad for terminations and have their baby's remains delivered by courier van weeks later. I'm fine with the state of my heart, thank you.

To say that welfare systems are the only way to prevent pregnancy is to say that women are not capable of taking responsibility for their own bodies.

I have no idea how that's the case. Also I'm saying a good welfare system means that if a very poor woman has an unplanned pregnancy her choices extend past 'have an abortion' and 'raise a child in poverty'... women will make the choice that is in the best interest of their life and health and that of their family. Giving women in crisis access to more options is how to reduce those abortions. Better socialised access to education and contraception would help many of those unplanned pregnancies not occur in the first place. And I'm saying that if it truly breaks your heart that this is happening, those are the places you should be focusing your energy, because they'd do a hell of a lot more to reduce abortion than making it restrictive to access and talking about being heartbroken over the 'loss of life' on a public forum regardless of the many women who have had to make this decision who might read it and feel further stigmatised (like they don't have enough of that already. You'd swear everybody wasn't aware of the incredible potential posed in pregnancy... that's why its such a deeply personal decision!)

SOMEONE has to take responsibility for the child if the parent isn't willing to

Or is unable to, financially - which is the reason many women choose abortion who otherwise would not.

The legislation this billboard is protesting against only provides for an abortion if a woman is literally going to die without one... from a threat to her life physically(as decided upon by 2 doctors), or from risk of suicide (which a possible seven doctors could have to weigh in on).

Even for anti-choice people... this legislation is for abortion when the choice is terminate the pregnancy or let both die.

I would not consider it a 'rapey' argument to recognize the fact that babies are made when people have sex.

That isn't what I said though. I said it was rapey to say that consent for one thing is auto-consent to another thing even if you aren't in fact consenting to the other thing. Consent needs to be explicitly given.

even through use of their body; breast-feeding, etc

No woman is compelled by law to breast feed.

If you cannot see that nature is normative

We subvert the course of nature all the time, especially when it comes to medicine. Descriptive, not prescriptive.

Pregnancy certainly is not punitive. There is not difference between a fetus conceived consensually or by rape.

Then it's irrelevant whether or not the woman had consensual sex, and pointless to use consent to sex as an argument for why we should deny abortion.

Again, I unashamedly value the rights of a woman to health, bodily autonomy and self-determination above whatever rights one could ascribe to a fetus.

I dont think a parents duty of care includes use of their body or sacrifice their health through it. Consent for a person to be in you must be actively given and can be withdrawn (saying a person auto consents to pregnancy by consenting to sex, even If they are saying they dont consent is lunacy... also a pretty 'rapey' argument. Consent Cant be presumed or forced).... and, again, i value the rights of sentient grown women to life, health and bodily autonomy over whatever rights one could ascribe to a fetus. I find appeals to nature unconvincing, nature doesnt make laws... And how 'responsible' somebody is for their medical state is a shit way to decide who gets medical care, and not something we do for any other medical treatment (the only reason to see pregnancy from consensual sex or rape diffrently is if you consider pregnancy punative)

This is why it is heartbreaking for me to think that women choose abortion over other options.

If it genuinely breaks your heart, and you genuinely care about these women, then I suggest instead of posting about weeping for aborted fetuses without any thought to the women reading this back and forth who have had to make that difficult decision, that you find ways to fight for women having access to the best alternatives to abortion that exist, or access to resources to prevent them being in that situation at all (a robust welfare system, socialised childcare, destigmatising single mothers and adoption, socialised health care, a reformed and robust adoption system which protects the privacy of the mother, comprehensive sex education, free contraception and sexual health screenings etc... funnily enough many of those things are actually opposed by the anti-abortion movement, which only drives home for me how much of it is about controlling women, not 'life')

The fetus is not granted the use of the mother's body by any outside power. The fetus does not force itself upon the womb of the mother, it finds itself there with no will of its own as unique being.

So? Why should that mean it can infringe on the bodily autonomy of a person who isn't consenting? And if a woman isn't consenting to be pregnant, and abortion is illegal where she lives (as it is where I am) it really is being granted use of her body by an outside power (the state).

Why does it need permission to live if it is already alive?

It isn't about permission to live, it's about permission to live even at the expense of the bodily autonomy and health of another person (which, as I outlined, is a 'right' no born person has, because nobody has 'rights' to other peoples bodies)

Your argument is basically one of power over weakness. Because the fetus is too weak to protect itself it forfeits it's right to life at the will of a being more powerful than it. How does this fit into any sort of civilized society?

No, I'm saying nobody has the right to live at the expense of another's autonomy or health. If I own the womb, only I should be able to choose who gets to occupy it.

(again, this is all granting that a fetus has personhood, which I do not consider it to have... I'm happy to debate on this basis though, because it makes no difference)

An abortion is the direct killing of the fetus.

Except it isn't at all... almost 90% of abortions induce miscarriage via pills. What kills the fetus is being denied further use of the body of another person who's body they depend upon to live.

Should we not protect the rights of all our species?

As I already said, I value the right to health and bodily autonomy of living grown sentient women far above whatever rights one could ascribe to an unthinking unfeeling fetus

(At this point I should state that obviously as the fetus becomes more developed people tend to have a problem with abortion at that stage, and to that I would say: That shows a massive ignorance of the reasons abortions happen at that stage of pregancy, i.e. to protect health of the mother or if the fetus has severe deformities such as anencephaly. In Canada, where abortion is a medical procedure like any other and not restricted by law, unsurprisingly to me women aren't lining up to electively abort healthy pregnancies late in gestation... since a woman discovers she is pregnant usually very early in pregnancy and makes her choice, which is accessible to her in that country...because late term abortions also happen to desperate scared women who haven't been able to access abortion sooner, as happened with several of Gosnell's patients who had tried for months to seek a safe legal abortion and could not for various reasons.)

It doesn't matter if it isn't their fault they were conceived in somebody who didn't wish to carry them. The question is, when a woman is pregnant and does not wish to be, which do you value higher, the right of the fetus to grow and be born or the right of the woman to control her body and who gets to be in it/use it? I unapolagetically value the rights of the autonomous sentient women over any rights one could ascribe to a fetus.

(this is presuming we are to grant personhood to a fetus, upon which there is no consensus.)

(and its also completely aside from the actual issue which is that when abortion is illegal women die having unsafe illegal ones. Giving women more choices, education, support, contraception etc are the ways to reduce abortion. Legal restrictions are just symbolic moralising that don't help at all)

Every woman's feelings about her pregnancy is different (and sometimes is different for different pregnancies, over half the women who have an abortion already have at least 1 child). Pro-choice simply believes that it is the woman's decision. I would not dismiss the heartache of a woman who lost a wanted pregnancy at, say 14 weeks.... nor would I stigmatise the feelings of, say, a woman in an abusive relationship whos partner sabotaged their birth control who has an abortion at 14 weeks and finds herself feeling liberated of her partner's attempt to shackle her. Nobody considers abortion to be an 'easy out'. Everybody knows the incredible potential pregnancy poses, which is why it's a considered and very personal decision that only the woman can make for her own body and health.

Even if the fetus is granted personhood, no born person has the right to use or occupy the body of another without the other person's consent, even if they will die otherwise...so why would unborn people have that right? We don't compel people to donate organs or even blood even though people die in want of those all the time... because my body is mine, and if somebody else wants to use it or be in it they need my permission. What anti-choice are advocating is a special class of rights for the unborn, where they are granted rights to use another's body to sustain their life, even at the expense of the bodily autonomy and health (mental and physical) of the other person.

Absolutely... I just personally find how he's 'always on' to be kind of annoying (I feel the same way about, say, Robin Williams and Jim Carey too...even though I like their comedy much more) and I don't find him to be hugely funny.

I loved that documentary. I don't actually like Conan all that much (or find him particularly hilarious) but I found it absolutely fascinating just how addicted he is to performing and giving himself to fans. And you can see him get more and more wrecked throughout, he's sitting going 'I just need 10 minutes' and somebody tells him there are some fans outside with signs and he's like 'ok I'm gonna go out there so'.... it's called Can't Stop for a reason!